The keynote speaker for the annual conference of the LCWR is New Age quack Barbara Marx Hubbard. If you’ve never heard of her, just try to imagine a combination of Deepak Chopra and Ray Kurzweil with an extra helping of crazy. Her big thing is Conscious Evolution, which is the latest repackaging of “est” with an added transhumanist/post-humanist subtext. Here she is explaining Conscious Evolution, which sounds like a combination of X-Men comics, techno-fetishizing, narcissism, New Age nonsense, paganism, trite bromides, bad grammar, Gnosticism, and good old heresy.

Read the speech here which really is full-on crazy where we learn what the Resurrection really was (well not really). That this was the keynote speech for even dissident nuns is rather surprising. But when you leave the Magisterium behind you become open to even the most irrational of theology. I think of Frank Sheed’s brilliant book “Theology and Sanity” and really the Magisterium (guided by the Holy Spirit) keeps us sane as heterodoxy is really a form of insanity in not seeing reality as it really is.

The sympathetic news stories in support of these dissident nuns is to be expected. Though it is funny that members of the LCWR didn’t seem to see this coming considering how many times they talk about being prophetic. Though I am annoyed about the stories scoping all American nuns as coming under this. For them faithful American nuns should be ignored.

I’m an atheists and yes! I am brain dead! So why don’t you educate me and tell me where I am wrong?

>Not only brain death, but also viciousness and bad manners.

Ha! Ha! Yes! I am rude and vicious as well as stupid because I notice things like god worship has about as much basis in reason as New Age mysticism! You of course know that they are radically different and only one is superstitious nonsense and the other complete reasonable and well proven!

And you of course will explain it to me…?

No, I am too rude, vicious and brain dead to bother with! You’ll only insult me because that is totally a substitute.

You are another Christian who is just like Jesus, it’s small wonder he hasn’t come back, the world is already full of him!

I aplogize that my comment does not apply to the article in question, but I have come across a paragraph that is one of the most beautiful things that I have ever read, and I want to disseminate it over the Internet.

Human Person and the Tabernacle

Paragraph from page 344 of Volume 1 of The Mystical Evolution in the Development and Vitality of the Church by Father Juan Arintero, O.P.

“One day, at the time of Communion, Blessed Mariana of Jesus, the Lily of Madrid, being unusually aware of her lowliness and unworthiness, said to her Lord: “My Lord, the tabernacle in which Thou art is much more clean and beautiful.” Christ answered her: “But it cannot love me.” “From this,” said the holy nun, I understood how much more Christ prefers to reside in our souls than in gold or silver or precious jewels which are inanimate creatures incapable of love.”

>I am surprised that you would favor one group of believers but not another.

I don’t “favor” any such thing, what gives you that idea?

> So you are not an equal opportunity atheist?

Um… not sure what you mean by that? Are you saying that I think New Age hippy-dippy, homeopathic, hug dolphins to align your aura and ley-lines is any less goofy than eating a cracker because you think magic words turns it into your come back to life zombie god?

Anyway, Salvage, hope you are enjoying the Curt Jester’s blog as much as I am. I love it when former atheists ditch their old schtick and come out as God believers in the flesh. There’s pretty much nothing new that you could say that we’ve all not heard before in terms of your insults. But in terms of what the Jester offers, it’s eternally new, that’s the freshness of faith.

>I love it when former atheists ditch their old schtick and come out as God believers in the flesh.

Really? Which God?

>. There’s pretty much nothing new that you could say that we’ve all not heard before in terms of your insults.

Oh please ignore the insults and focus on my points. Like the one I made in this post about theists mocking other theists for their “goofy” beliefs. Why are your unbelievable things that you believe less unbelievable than the other unbelievable things that you don’t believe but others do?

There is nothing “fresh” about believing in gods, that sort of thing has been going on for at least 10-15,000 years.

Say, why does your god let all these fake gods run around dooming people to Hell? Like say a kid who is born a Hindu dies a Hindu, unsaved, is then condemned to be tortured forever and ever.

Does that seem reasonable to you?

Or is this just me being insulting? Forgive me, t’s so hard to tell with theists.

There is so much you claim not to know about, first you aren’t aware of all the Church does and now you claim a Hindu baby is unsaved. I don’t think you are very aware of what the Church is really about but are taking a lot of things told to you as gospel truth.

Oh good lord go find somewhere else to troll salvage! Why on earth do atheists feel the need to visit religion blogs other than to chide them for their beliefs? Does it make you feel better? You say that you “love it when one set of theists calls another set of theists “quacks” “nonsense” and “Crazy”, nothing like a rock fight in a village of glass houses”, you do realise that the same could be applied to you, right? ‘Brights’ like yourself really should check your own ideas out before mocking others.

The LCWR has not been Catholic for a very long time. I am not surprised that the Church has taken the pastoral stance to “work with them.” It is how they do things. I would have preferred, however, that they had just severed them from the Church. Let them go solo. The entire line up for their August conference is appalling. You can’t go look at it now though as their entire website seems to have disappeared from the internet. Interesting.
Salvage…..you only reveal your ignorance when you comment on anything Catholic. You can’t discuss what you don’t understand. I am sorry that you have not heard the Lord calling. It isn’t that he isn’t calling, but when one hardens their heart against him, it is impossible to hear him. I will pray that you will someday experience the Truth, the Love and the Peace that only Our Lord Jesus Christ can give. I didn’t him or see him until I was 51 years old, so it is never too late. That is your choice however. Deny him and he will deny you.

And there we go, yet again you do not answer my question. Why is that?

I don’t care what you believe and I would cheerfully take a bullet for your right to not only believe any fool thing you like but to blather on about it endlessly.

But that is not what this thread is about, what it is about is Catholics mocking others with words like “quack” and “crazy” when Catholicism contains the exact same elements to qualify for such labels. Hypocrisy is the word I think?

It seems my mocking is offensive and “rude” however. I believe this is one of those “Dish it out but can’t take it” deals.

At any rate your religion teaches that if you don’t accept Jesus and perform certain rituals your loving god will punish you when you die with endless torture.

Is that right or wrong?

Well I know it’s wrong but I mean is that what your Church teaches you or are there Muslims, Jews, Hindus, atheists Protestants and other non-Catholics in Heaven?

Ah yes, this old dodge, I don’t understand! Yet no one seems to be saying specifically what I’ve gotten wrong. No, I do know what your religion is about, I know the history of the Vatican, I made a study of the Reformation and the wars it spawned. I know the Neolithic rituals that your current ones are based upon, I know the myths and legends that were cannibalized to create the story of Jesus.

I understand it quite well and that’s why I don’t believe a word of it.

>I am sorry that you have not heard the Lord calling.

I guess that must be my fault but then again isn’t your god all powerful? Shouldn’t the responsibility for failed communication lie with it?

> I will pray that you will someday experience the Truth, the Love and the Peace that only Our Lord Jesus Christ can give.

I don’t think Jesus is all that much into peace. For instance you do know that it took two very bloody civil wars for Christianity to become the official religion of the Roman Empire? It was subsequently spread by more war by the successive emperors? And even after Christianity covered Europe there was no end to war? France, Germany, England, Spain and the rest, all Christian nations, all at constant conflict with each other for some 1700 years. So what is this peace of which you speak? The peace of the grave? Yes, Christianity certainly granted that to countless millions!

>I didn’t him or see him until I was 51 years old, so it is never too late. That is your choice however. Deny him and he will deny you.

I know! Your god is like a mafia don that way, either you love it or it will make you pay.

Even if such a creature were real I couldn’t worship it, that would be akin to giving in to terrorism.

Savage, wars are universal phenomenon – part of human nature. If religious belief caused wars, then explain to us all why the atheistic regimes of the past 150 years have all fought wars both internally and externally?

Secondly about the rationality of our faith: it comes down to what we accept as evidence and authority. Christians accept the eye witness accounts of past generations because there’s no good reason to doubt them. For example, there are more written documents attesting to the existence of Jesus than the existence of Plato. So we have at least as much ground to believe Jesus of Nazareth existed as we do to believe Plato existed.

Secondly, we accept the Gospels as worthy of belief because of the intrinisic coherency of their message; just as any ideologue accepts the cogency of their belief system based on the manifesto or tract of their philosopher. But in the Gospel accounts the ‘argument’ for key supernatural assertions were not just “and then he claimed such and so”. It was always recorded as based on miracles. Miracles that were repeated throughout the early Church as witness to the more likelihood that the preacher was ‘on to something.’.

Marx and others made similar pie in the sky claims (like history is linear with an inevitable end point) but without any miracles proving that they were credible people when it comes to prophecy or insight to human affairs. Jesus prophecied the destruction of the Temple and his own resurrection and both came to pass.

Finally, while you are an unbeliever, what I find curious is your identification as an “atheist” rather than an agnostic. Not knowing and admitting that is intellectually defensible. But being “sure” that a God or “the” God can’t possibly, metaphysically exist, couldn’t possibly be incarnate, couldn’t possibly relate to humanity or communicate with us is another.

Other than “evil” you’ve got no good ‘argument’ against metaphysics. And evil isn’t really that big a deal if you’re a student of Socrates.

Advent 2016

Praying Days to Christmas

About Me

Jeff Miller is a former atheist who after spending forty years in the wilderness finds himself with both astonishment and joy a member of the Catholic Church. This award winning blog presents my hopefully humorous and sometimes serious take on things religious, political, and whatever else crosses my mind.My conversion story